24 " THE IHEÄ TR E 1 , !l..:Ø 1 " :,lr7 . .' II\" . Ì:::..:,*;, .. ,- f : . ø !I \:: " " l' * I' lllfl'Ri # 'F, þ) .j l:' I:. J" MOSTLY ABOUT NEGR.OES A )' , .$i t r ':'..,::.;r:J': '... ;:?' filJ .-;.* .. .:,:il ......11 ,',',' '" '. ',ù n< " } :r.-" , ", 9(, ! Y : : 1 Sì ..'" ) , :':+:: <" "t .; ';Y4 .... .. "',' jÄ : ' ': " : : W E might as well face it-none of the plays that we have been mauling around on this page for the past few weeks was really worth more than a passing comment, even in these flibbertigibbet columns. You would have thought that we were con- fronted with another "The Wild Duck" and that the Revue des Deux M ondes was holding its presses for a critique from us, the way we have been pulling forelocks and tapping pencils over such items as whether or not "Three-Cornered Moon" was true to life, or just what the authors of "Far Away Horses" meant by having the husband leave the wife in the second act, or how far "The Party's Over" conformed with the Aristotelian for- mula. And all the time what we were really doing was trying to fill a page with theatrical news which wasn't even news. All of this is by way of preparing you for being stunned by the announce- ment that we are not even going to take up the matter of "Her Tin Soldier." It dealt with a Roxy usher's sex life. This is positively all that we are going to say about it. More important, to me, at any rate, is the fact that Mr. Arthur . . ((Son e day I shall play Hamlet." "y "" / @F Holden, writing in the New York Amsterdam News, a Harlem weekly paper, has misread my review of "Run, Little Chillun!" so completely that there is a chance that others may have done the same thing, and I really wouldn't like that, especially if they were colored people. It was a short review, not because of any desire to dismiss Mr. Hall Johnson's play with a paragraph, but because of what are known as "the exigencies of closing date," which means that it was done in a hurry. I am afraid that it was done in too much of a hurry. At any rate, it was not at all clear to Mr. Holden. If you care at all, what I said, after paying tribute to the choral singing, was: "But, frankly, I am getting a little tired of tom-toms and writhings and large ensembles depicting the more elemental forms of worship, and I see no reason why it isn't almost time now for Negroes in the theatre to behave al- most as sensibly as white folks. That isn't putting too much of a burden on them, at that." M R. HOLDEN did not understand that I meant Negroes in the theatre when I said "in the theatre," and " <'" ..:;'::,;,:" '1&-,' ',,' ,,', ,,:, ,..' .,.,:<ID\, "Jtir:\ : ;\:J.,." .: --..,.:-:.:.-... -;'.' " . ....f AW@<:" . ,_..-.... ."1--{{::.;.. . ,,:: , .. " ;:"::.'t&t: ,->. :. /;: .;;t ... .. : ...:.:-:: ;'::::;':::::,,":'::::.;.. ' >'f;; ::'" .. .. >>:' }f. ".j1 ' /%. ;,r' was upset because he thought that I was saying that Negroes in general ought to act as sensibly as white folks. This would have been absurd for me, or any- one, to have said, because Negroes in general do behave as sensibly as white folks, and God knows that that is faint enough praise. And it is with the thous- ands Qf sensible, well-balanced Negroes in mind that I resent (although not per- sonally concerned) the constant presen- tation on our stage of the Negro as a barbaric baby given to orgiastic writh- ings and wild moanings on the slightest pretext, and as a member of society whose only virtues are snake hips and a good singing voice. That a certain num- ber of these group exhibitions of religious and sex frenzy add color and beauty to the local stage cannot be denied, and Mr. Johnson's is perhaps the most thrilling of any we have yet seen. My poin t, not too explicitly expressed, was that it might be well once in awhile for us to see a Negro on the stage who was neither a moron nor a sporadic demon with epileptic tendencies, but just a good, solid citizen with prob- lems which do not necessarily involve the more primitive emotions and with at least one foot on the groun.d. There are such among the Negro race, and I should think that they might be get- ting a little sore. Mr. Holden seems to feel that my impatience with this aspect of Negro cutting-up is due to my being "sophis- . d " F tlcate . or some strange reason, anyone writing for this magazine, or any magazine with funny pictures in it, is labeled "sophisticated." Just what is meant by the word in this connection is not always clear, but the implication is unflattering, I am sure. As it hap- pens in this case, the real sophisticates are the ones who derive an especial thrill at seeing Negroes go animalistic on the stage, and the more sophisticated the white audience is, the more it goes in for what are known as the "funda- mentals" in orgies. It takes an old, unimaginative plodder like me, with no sophistication at all, to protest. -ROBERT BENCHLEY . $25 REW ARD--Green onyx bracelet, diamond clasp, lost March 8, vicinity 1 Sutton Place, River Club, 435 East 52 St.; Puncheon Club, 21 West 52d; Place Pigalle, 201 West 52d, or Para- dise Restaurant, 215 West 52d, or taxi. Return to L. F. Hawley, 107 Wil- liam St. JOhn 4-4300.-A dv.' in the Times. Well anyway, 52nd Street.